


The Chair Fic

by theloredragon



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blackmail, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, The chair, can we pls discuss the npcs with trauma, spoilers for episode 50ish, takes place during ep 110, vess derogna is the worst, yeza brenatto is father of the year, yeza brenatto is husband of the year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26594044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theloredragon/pseuds/theloredragon
Summary: its the chair fic.and no. its not even a little funny.
Relationships: Yeza Brenatto/Nott | Veth Brenatto
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	The Chair Fic

**Author's Note:**

> TW at bottom of fic.
> 
> If I have to think about this every time they joke about the chair, so do you. :)

Yeza unlocked the door to their Nicodranian apartment, smiling softly at the ruckus coming from within. Veth’s friends really were a wild bunch. At first, he had just been grateful, but he had genuinely grown to love the Mighty Nein. Except one, he thought to himself, as Veth turned around and beamed at him. 

He had loved Veth from the moment he first saw her. 

Luc scrambled over to him, grabbing the side of his leg and nearly making him fall over. 

“Hold on, Luc.” Yeza chided. “Let me put all this down first.”

“Here, let us help.” Fjord offered, taking one of the bags off of his back. 

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Yeza protested, but Mr. Clay had already lifted the other. “Okay, but sit, sit, I can cook dinner.”

Veth’s friends argued for a moment, but Yeza stood his ground. _A halfling wasn’t good for much if he wasn’t good for hospitality_ , Yeza’s father had always said. And Yeza owed everything to this group. Veth offered to join him, but he waved her off to join her friends. Even with her surprise at them being back so soon, Yeza could tell she was happier with them around. Especially that Caleb boy. Sooner or later he’d drag the story about that one out of Veth, but for now, he’d just do something about how skinny the poor wizard was. 

Stew was fattening, good for large groups, and Yeza still had his grandmother’s recipe. Now, after the grocery run, he had enough to make stew for a week. That is, if he was only feeding three. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work: one large pot and a smaller one on the side without any meat for Mr. Clay. 

As he worked, he dimly listened to Veth and her friends plan their next step.

“I’m still confused.” Jester commented, pursing her lips. 

“At least we’re gonna get some answers soon.” Beauregard pointed out. “I hate that some stuff we’re just never gonna get to figure out.”

“Like what?”

“Like that stupid chair. What was with that?” The rest of the Mighty Nein roared with laughter, Veth included. 

“Huh?” Yeza asked, baffled enough to interject into the conversation.

Beauregard explained. 

“So before we knew that you’d been taken to the Dynasty, Veth dragged us all to your old shop. Couldn’t find you, so we broke into the basement. Sitting right in the middle of the basement was a totally normal, not at all magical chair.”

“That was really weird,” Jester said.

Veth hummed her agreement.

Yeza swayed where he stood. The air forced itself out of his lungs as he stared into the bubbling pot in front of him. He breathed, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them, the pot was gone. Instead, a glittering green robe stretched in front of him. 

He gazed up into the cold, piercing eyes of the Lady De Rogna. His whole body shuddered to a stop as she cocked a single, perfect eyebrow, staring him down with the lazy elegance of a cat on the prowl. 

“Well, alchemist?” Lady DeRogna prodded. “I expected a message detailing your successful results. Was it lost in the mail?”

Yeza vividly recalled hours of staring at a blank page, trying to write something that would bring success out of nothing. He forced himself to wring his hands to hide the fact that they were shaking.

“Ah, no.” He stumbled over his words. “There was ah, a setback? With the subject, and, well...”

Yeza trailed off. Above him, the Archmage of Antiquity loomed.

“Mr. Brennatto.” His name sounded far too pronounced on her severe lips. “I. need. Results.”

Yeza scrambled to explain, to mollify her before the anger in her eyes bubbled anywhere else. 

“I understand that, and I-”

“Do you?”

He stuttered to a halt. 

“‘Xcuse me?”

She sighed pointedly. 

“I’m not sure you understand at all, Mr. Brennatto.” Something dangerous flashed in Lady DeRogna’s eyes. “I need this project to be as important to you as it is to me.”

He leaped to assure her.

“And it absolutely is-”

“No.” She interrupted him casually. “It isn’t.”

In the long silence that followed, Yeza wracked his brain, trying to gather together any sort of sentence that would satisfy her.

“Is that your son upstairs, Mr. Brenatto?”

His blood froze. 

_No. no, no._

“Yes.” he croaked out, barely above a whisper.

Lady DeRogna just watched him for a long moment, clinically observing his whole body shake with the effort of keeping himself together. Her hand reached out, spindly fingers hooking round one of the tough, wooden chairs in his basement laboratory. It made an awful screeching noise as she dragged it to the exact center of the room. Yeza flinched, but the woman didn’t even blink as she stared him down. She paused, allowing Yeza to slowly fall apart at the edges. After a moment, she smiled blandly, giving off the pleasant, false interest of a distant family member inquiring about a grand-nephew.

“Why don’t you call him down?” 

The world spun around him, faster than Yeza could think. Everything was warm. Hot. Scalding.

His breath came in quick bursts as his feet carried him to the bottom of the stairs. 

“Luc?” he called, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Come here, please.” In a mighty surge of effort, he turned to face the sorceress.

“He’s all I have.” Yeza said forcefully. He had half a moment to take pride in the fierceness of the words before Lady DeRogna’s laugh knocked it right back out of him. 

“Then I hope you are as good as your reputation suggests, Master Alchemist.” Her attention focused just behind his head. “Oh, hello there! What’s your name?”

On the third step from the bottom, Luc stood, still sleepy from his nap. One tiny fist rubbed his eyes, the other holding the stick that functioned as a little toy “sword”. Yeza reached out, and his son obliged easily, stepping forward and allowing himself to be pulled into Yeza’s side. 

“I’m Luc.” He reached up, grabbing the hem of Yeza’s shirt with his free hand.

For a moment, Yeza was afraid Luc could hear the thudding of his heart. 

Lady DeRogna knelt, shimmering green robes spilling onto the stained floor. 

“Hello Luc. Would you like to watch your father work today?”  
His son, his beautiful, wonderful son lit up like Dancing Lights. Luc turned his big eyes, (Veth’s eyes) up at him.

“Can I? Can I really, Dad?” Luc bounced on his toes. 

Yeza nodded, tongue thick in his mouth.

Lady DeRogna beckoned with a single dark fingernail. 

“Come, sit here, Master Luc.” She cooed. “You can tell me all about the adventures you have with that sword of yours.” 

Luc barely glanced up at Yeza to check his approval before racing over, clambering up into the chair next to that hateful woman. 

The smile she gave him would haunt Yeza for the rest of his life.

“Honey?”

Yeza started, nearly dropping the spoon into the iron cookpot. He looked up into the face of his worried wife. 

“I’m okay.” he lied, shaking his head. “Just, zoned out.” 

Veth frowned at him, but didn’t press the issue. 

Mr. Clay’s left ear flopped.

“Do you want me to take over?” He drawled lazily, gesturing with his nose at the cookpot. Yeza hastily shook his head.

“No, no, you’re our guests. I’ve got it,” Yeza assured him. He shook his head again, knocking the last of the haze out of his head and focusing on the meal in front of him. His hands were shaking. 

Shaky hands had ruined the first experiment after that conversation. And the second. And the third. Hot, salty tears, desperately wiped away before Luc could notice them wrecked the fourth, when the Lady finally took pity on him, sending his boy up to the kitchen and using her magic to leave him alone in the basement lab.

He’d allowed himself to fall to his knees and stay there for one minute only. After that, he pushed himself to his feet. For Luc. And his hands weren’t shaking anymore.

Something huge collided with his back. Yeza realized that Master Clay was squeezing himself into their halfling-size kitchen and gently taking the spoon away from him. Even sitting down, Mr. Clay took up most of their kitchen. He didn’t say anything, but his grey, floppy ear flicked out again. 

Yeza took the hint, quietly leaving the kitchen. Luc was crawling all over Ms. Beauregard; Yeza went to him immediately, scooping him up into his arms and blowing a raspberry into his neck. Veth tucked herself into his side immediately, and he hugged her too, squeezing his eyes shut. He breathed in.

“Dad, you’re crushing me!” Luc complained.

“Yes,” Yeza murmured into his curls. “Yes I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I'm back from the abyss to ruin everything.
> 
> TW for blackmail, insinuating threat to the life of a child, and emotional manipulation of a father using his son.
> 
> and no, I am not sorry.


End file.
